Calling everyone working at the intersection of international relations and intellectual freedom!
IRRT has been invited to the Round Table Spectacular that the GAMERT, GNCRT, and others have been organizing annually for a few years now. For those not familiar with it, I'm happy to take more detailed questions, but the short description is that it's a day of ALA round tables showing off what they're about in relation to a particular theme. 2023's theme was LGBTQIA+, and IRRT joined as part of last year's internationally themed spectacular. Carol Brey gave an overview of IRRT during the opening session, and then we had some great presentations from various IRRT committees for our part of the event.
We've been invited back for this year's spectacular, which is themed around intellectual freedom, and I'm IRRT's contact for it as the co-chair of the webinars committee. After the initial meeting, I think there's a place for us again this year. I'm sure there are IRRT members that research topics like:
- censorship in other countries
- international agreements like the Marrakech Treaty that allows for countries to share accessible copies of books
- how copyright varies from country to country
If this is you and you'd like to participate, please let me know. Even if this isn't exactly you, but your area of research (or that of someone you know) touches on how intellectual freedom and international issues connect, feel free to drop me a line. I'm happy to not only get further ideas for topics, but also names of people who are more in the know and could be interested in presenting.
The spectacular itself isn't until Fall, most likely October or maybe early November, so there's plenty of time to plan. Please let me know if you have any further questions--I'm happy to answer.
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Katie Spires
She/Her/Hers,They/theirs
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